‘Official’ Check Goes Gentle Into That Good Night
She was just three hours young
Twitter’s gray “Official” check is officially dead, as of roughly 11:39 a.m. on November 9th, after a short, unhappy, much-mocked life of approximately three hours. The cause of death was Twitter’s sage new leader Elon Musk, who announced its passing on Twitter.
The Official check is not to be confused with the blue check, also known as the “Verified” check, which Twitter has used to authenticate famous people and random journalists for several years. Those are still with us, though they will soon cost $8 per month, for reasons that remain unclear to most people.
With blue checks headed for irrelevancy, Twitter introduced the gray check to restore the purpose blue checks currently serve — i.e. verifying accounts whose authenticity is somewhat vital for the regular procession of civil society, such as governments, public figures, and media outlets like Gawker.com. Confused? That’s because you’re not operating on Musk’s level. The man is playing five-dimensional checkers, and his next move was to immediately kill the gray Official check.
Musk didn’t write “parody” next to the announcement or use sarcasm font, so one can only assume he was serious. Evidently, he was. Moments later, BuzzFeed News reporter David Mack verified that the “Official” checks were dust:
Sleep well sweet prince.
